A job should lead to a degree versus the other way around, according to Mallory Dwinal-Palisch, chancellor at Reach University – where half of the earned credit is a person’s job experience at their place of work and the other half comes from online classes.

WorkingNation sat down with Dwinal-Palisch at the ASU+GSV Summit in San Diego.

She says combining four components – efficiency, flexibility, affordability, and professional capital – ensures that the job a person has today becomes the foundation for them getting a degree.

Using the pathway to becoming a teacher in an educational institution as an example, Dwinal-Palisch says, “Schools of ed are closing because they can’t get enough people to even sign up. We have a wait list, thousands-of-students-long right now. They’re choosing between Reach University and not going to college because they can’t afford tuition, four years out of the workforce, hoping to find a job on the other side. Arranging childcare. Missing work. They can’t afford any of that.”

“When we see teacher shortages, what we’re realizing is what we have here is not a lack of people who want to become teachers, it’s a lack of viable pathways to fill those spots.”

Learn more about Reach University.